


What Appeared in the Night

by another_Hero



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Gen, if that's even Gwen's last name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-05 10:49:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20487674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/another_Hero/pseuds/another_Hero
Summary: The base of a snow fort appears overnight. The people of Schitt's Creek adjust their lives to include it.





	What Appeared in the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [sunlightsymphony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlightsymphony/pseuds/sunlightsymphony) in the [SCFrozenOver](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCFrozenOver) collection. 

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Overnight, the foundations of a snow fort appear in the town center. Things quickly get out of hand as everyone tries to add their own unique touch to the project. (I had to tag at least one character, but don't care who the story focuses on. I'd just love for some more minor characters to be featured!)

****As usual, Twyla didn’t see anyone else in the street while she walked to the café to open. There were a few lights on in windows, cutting through the still-dark morning, but few reasons to go out so early in Schitt’s Creek.

She didn’t see anyone else, but she did see a pile of snow in the middle of the street.

It must have been a prank, she thought. Once her cousin Doug had left a pile of tires in her uncle Billy’s driveway. But that was to frame him for stealing them, which didn’t really make sense in the context of snow.

In any case, as she got closer, she realized it wasn’t a pile at all. The sides were walls; it was hollow inside, like a snow fort. Not a very good one; it didn’t have a roof or anything. Like the kind of snow fort her cousins used to hide behind in order to throw snowballs spiked with shards of glass. She scanned the ground in there, but she didn’t see anything reflective or broken.

She went through the motions of preparing to open, and she finished with ten minutes to spare. Most days, if she’d found herself with a little free time before opening, she’d have taken the opportunity to sit down, but this morning she rummaged in the back room for decorations. There were _plenty_ of decorations at the café; they pretty much accepted anything offered, and put them out for whatever holiday. But most of them were—specific. Bright red hearts, colorful eggs, a menorah—any of that would look strange and out of season in early January. Anything snow-related would be redundant. She stopped fumbling when she found some lanterns.

Usually—at least in concept—the café put them out for Ramadan, but, well, Twyla had no idea when Ramadan was this year. They had those electric tea lights inside them, and cutout patterns in the sides, and with the days still so short—that would be the best option. She fished out five of them, switched on the candles, and arranged them around the top of the snow fort. Technically she ended up opening six minutes late, but since no customers had arrived yet, she didn’t think it mattered too much.

Ray liked to leave his house at seven o’clock for breakfast at the café. It was important to adhere to a schedule when your home was also your office: he started work right at eight o’clock, and he tried to finish his day at five, unless he had a client to serve in the evening, or needed to dedicate some outside time to a new venture, or was just so enjoying a project that he lost track of time. He didn’t eat at the café every morning, but it helped him feel like the day had started and the world was larger than his house—though his house was well-equipped, and in case of a town-wide catastrophe, he imagined it would be a popular place to land.

He noticed the fort immediately, of course. Ray was in the habit of paying attention to subtle changes around town, and this was not a subtle change, it was a large pile of snow right between the café and the old general store, which he really ought to get into the habit of thinking of as Patrick’s store. Or David’s store? Patrick just called it “the store,” which suggested some ownership, and “Rose Apothecary” was too fancy a name to use everyday for the place where you bought your toilet plunger. But at this moment, Ray was less interested in the store than in the three-walled structure of snow in front of it.

He ate his eggs in the window and peered around the edge of the curtain. It would be a good surface for an advertisement—not anything permanent, of course, a snow fort in the middle of the road wouldn’t last the day. But until it was destroyed, it would draw a lot of attention. He could write in the snow on the side of it—_for help finding YOUR winter hideaway, call Ray!_ How could he write in snow? Surely spraypaint would be too much, not really in the spirit. He would scratch the letters in, with a stick or something. He felt his pockets—his keys would do.

Satisfied, he paid his bill, put all his winter layers back on, stepped outside into the street, crouched in the snow, and scratched a message in the snow fort wall.

When Patrick had woken to see the thick new snow on the ground, he’d rolled back over and gone to sleep. He didn’t mind running in the winter—once you got over the burning in your throat, it was sort of nice—but the plowing of the roads in Schitt’s Creek was spotty at best, and most of his neighbors weren’t up at 6:30 shoveling their sidewalks. So he didn’t see the snow fort until he was on his way in to open the store.

There was the obvious downside—customers wouldn’t be able to park right by the door—but on the other hand, David would despise it, and Patrick lived for that kind of entertainment. He didn’t have to do much to open the store, just showed up early for the quiet and out of an abundance of caution, and he’d noticed there were a few lanterns around the top of the fort, so he spent the extra time pondering what he could take out of the store to garner David’s particular disapproval. It would have to go on the side, facing the store, and at first he wished they had a large, hangable sign. But the chalkboard would do, he realized.

He ran to ask Twyla for some teapots. He had never seen a teapot at the café, but she showed him where they were kept, and he took four with a promise to return them later in the day. He turned on the electric kettle in the back, marked out four bags of different herbal teas in the inventory, and put some rose tea in the first pot—no need to start more than one before the day got really underway. 

He didn’t have the aesthetic sense of it that David did. But he wrote on the chalkboard: _Rose Apothecary snow day! Warm up with a free cup of tea!_ He added an arrow and placed the chalkboard just outside the entrance to the snow fort. David would come in disgusted and saying, “Did you do this?” But with that time, by any luck, the promise of a warm beverage would have drawn plenty of customers.

Ronnie noticed the snow fort when she had to drive around it on her way to the town hall. She snorted: what sort of useless townie had just built _half_ a snow fort. It probably wasn’t tall enough to sit down in; it didn’t even have a roof. She could have driven her truck right through it, and for a moment she thought she just might. It would be satisfying, the feel of it collapsing as she drove. But there wasn’t anything _wrong_ with it, really. Sure, technically it was illegal, but a few people had gathered around; a kid, too small for school, was running in and out of it, chased halfheartedly by a caregiver. They’d all get out of the way of Ronnie’s truck, but she didn’t need to spoil the fun. She drove around.

She only had town council business today; winter was a slower season in her line of work, and it let her catch up. But that also meant she’d be able to come by at noon, see what she could do. She was wearing her warm gloves; she checked her glove box for a pair of tough ones. What more could she need?

When she got to the town hall, she picked up four hazard signs to block off the street. She walked them over—this was town business, wasn’t it? She put two of those A-frame signs at each end of the street, and she made sure one at each end said _Road closed_. There were only two _road closed_ signs in Schitt’s Creek; the other two said _Bea__rs_ and _Camping from November to February only_. She waved her greetings as she walked back up the street to the town hall.

Roland usually brought the baby out for a walk in the late morning, at least on school days. He needed to get out of the house, and there was a town to inspect.

He hadn’t anticipated a crowd between the café and the froofy store; he was going to have to take a look at this. When he got closer, he realized there was a snow fort there, and children inside of it throwing snowballs, which wasn’t really going to work for him. Of course, it was great to have a snow fort in the winter, but anyone with sense would realize you couldn’t just have _snowballs_ flying in the _street_.

He stepped into the café and grabbed the nearest empty chair. “Twyla,” he called, “I’m going to need to borrow this. Official business.”

“There’s actually a customer sitting there,” Twyla said, smiling.

“Yeah!” Roland cackled, “me!” He bent over laughing, careful of Roland Jr. When he’d recovered himself, he took the chair outside.

“Coming through,” he called, “it’s the mayor, all right. Now, we are going to have to institute a ban on snowball fights in this fort, and in order to enforce that ban, I’m going to be sitting right here. So if you want to know what you can do in the fort, you can just step right up and ask.”

A kid ducked into the fort with a snowball in hand.

“Ah ah ah,” Roland chided, “we’re not going to have any snowballs in here.”

The kid threw it right at the window of the café.

“All right,” said Roland, moving the chair forward. Two kids ran around him. He moved the chair back into the fort, removed the backpack he was carrying the baby in, sat down, and stretched his legs out as far as they could go. He got Roland Jr. unstrapped. “We’re just going to have to stay here and keep an eye on things,” he cooed. “_We_ know Aidan’s dad is trying to start a new business, don’t we? _We_ wouldn’t want business owners letting their sons throw snow at pedestrians. No we wouldn’t!”

The crowd of people in the street, from David’s perspective, might have been a good sign. Maybe there was an event today that no one had told him about? Town events always brought lots of shoppers. Not always a lot of buyers; that depended on the event. But he noticed a few things in rapid succession: there was a pile of snow on the ground, Roland was in the middle of it, and their café’s chalkboard was right outside.

He grabbed the chalkboard in one gloved hand and stepped into the store, not even bothering to hide his grimace. He was going to walk in, wave the chalkboard at the teeming masses outside, and ask Patrick, “Did _you_ do this?” But once he opened the door, it became clear that he would not, in fact, be making that particular entrance. The store was full of people.

He looked at the chalkboard in disgust—he didn’t want the store to be associated with whatever _that_ was going on outside. But he didn’t want to lose all these customers. He set it back down on the sidewalk, trying to remember to tell Patrick about the compromise he had just made.

Bob had plans to meet Gwen for lunch at 11:00 at the café, and Ronnie had told him about the snow fort in the middle of the street, but somehow he didn’t expect to find it quite so—there, in the middle of the street. He chuckled and stepped around it, giving it a once-over.

“Oh!” Roland called, “Bob! Hey, could you get me a coffee?”

“Sure thing, Roland.”

“Wait, no,” Roland said, “maybe I want a latte. No, a mocha, with a lot of whipped cream.”

“You want a latte with whipped cream,” Bob repeated.

“A hot chocolate,” Roland said, “yeah, I want a hot chocolate with whipped cream.”

“Can do,” said Bob with a neighborly wave, because it must be cold to have to sit out here all morning. He wasn’t entirely sure _why_ Roland was sitting out here, or whether he’d built that snow fort himself, but getting a hot chocolate wasn’t any trouble.

While he waited, inside, he discussed the snow fort with Gwen—what had she seen, did she know who had put it there? “It wasn’t Roland,” Twyla added helpfully. “At least, it wasn’t Roland _today_. By the time he showed up this morning, it was already built.”

“Huh,” he said, taking the hot chocolate. Gwen came back out with him. “Here you go,” he said, handing Roland the cocoa.

“Oof,” said Roland, “this is _not_ good coffee. The café is going to need to step it up a little.”

Bob didn’t say anything.

“So Bob,” Roland said, “could you do me a favor?”

“Sure, Roland, what do you need?”

“Could you go tell Stevie I’m not gonna make it to the motel?”

Bob looked dubiously up the road. The snow hadn’t been cleared yet, and though the motel wasn’t _far,_ a walk there and back would really cut into his already-delayed lunchtime with Gwen. “If you really need, Roland,” he said tentatively.

“If I really need, uh-huh, uh, I think I really need,” Roland said.

Bob turned to go, but Gwen caught his arm. “He can’t go to the motel, Roland,” she said. “We have lunch plans.”

Roland glared a little, and looked like maybe he was going to talk back to her, but in the end all he said was, “Well, if you don’t have time to help out a neighbor, Gwen, I get it.”

“We don’t,” Gwen said firmly.

“All right,” said Roland, “I don’t know who’s gonna help you in the next lightning storm.” They were already onto the sidewalk. “But it’s not going to be me!” he called.

Ronnie got back to the snow fort a little after noon. “Oh, good, Ronnie,” Roland said. “Hey, could you—”

“I’m not doing anything for you, Roland, why are you just sitting out in the snow?”

“Well, there were these kids throwing snowballs—” She wasn’t sure why he always looked so much like a first-grader tattling on a friend when someone asked him a direct question, but she just rolled her eyes.

“How long have you had that baby out here, Roland?”

He looked down at Rollie. “Not that long,” he said.

Rollie started to cry.

Ronnie smirked. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Go take care of his disgusting body. You’re in the way.”

“I’m in the—_I’m_ in the way?”

“Yeah, if we’re going to build this up to a proper height, I’m going to need to get to right where you’re standing.”

“And who said we were going to do that?”

“Go home, Roland. And take that chair back to the café.”

This time he did as he was told. Ronnie surveyed the fort and the people looking at it. “All right,” she said, pulling out a few pairs of waterproof gloves and holding them out. “We need to build this up at least head-height. We’ll start talking about a roof once it’s tall enough. Pack the snow densely, but leave windows for the lanterns.” At least three people were listening to her; Ray, who’d paused to listen on his way to lunch, took a pair of gloves. “We’re gonna work in pairs, one inside, one outside, pushing the snow toward each other. Any questions?”


End file.
